[robryan]

They would have got nowhere just being a slack clone going after the same businesses. In gaming there was a read pain point which they are addressing.

Services like Ventrilo, Teamspeak etc required a lot of setup/ self hosting and were only really strong for voice. Skype didn't organise well around how people game.

When I come back to WoW a few years ago a lot of people were trying to run groups on Skype which was a horrible experience of adding randoms and joining group calls, in additional to all the other downsides of Skype. Discord is a perfect replacement for that.